


A Rainy Day

by kethni



Category: American Gothic
Genre: F/M, Pre-ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1846363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selena thought the sheriff's handsome son would never know she existed. She was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rainy Day

Really, it started with Scooter Welles, him and his grabby, dirty hands. Otherwise she might’ve lived her whole life without ever being more than a name, another face in the crowd.

Trinity was small enough that some people were known by everyone; the religious leaders, the mayor, the town drunk, the town tramp, the sheriff. The sheriff’s son. But it wasn’t small enough that those people would know everyone else.

Selena was fifteen and ripe enough by some standards as well as being a beauty. The boys in her class had taken to calling her either stuck-up or a tease, because she was neither a blushing innocent nor a backwoods nympho. Selena didn’t much care what they thought. Boys her age were so immature. Not that there was a wealth of eligible young men either, but she’d seen the sheriff’s son, returned home from college, tall and strong and handsome. She wasn’t sure why he’d gone to college since he just upped and became a deputy. It didn’t really matter. His uniform suited him. She saw him strolling along the street, chatting to pretty girls. He’d never know she existed.

She had a fight with her daddy. She had a lot of fights with him, especially since her momma died. He had no idea what it was like to be her. He just didn’t understand. She grabbed a shawl and ran off, thinking she’d show him. She got all the way to Jasper Point before a sudden summer squall blew in and the rain descended.

Her thin white sundress was soaked through in seconds. Warm water pooled in her shoes, streamed down her body, and hung on her eyelashes. Selena laughed at herself. Someone had been taught a lesson all right. She started trudging back along the quiet road through the pulsing rivers of mud. Then she saw the approaching headlights. Selena was drenched, fed up, and tired. But she wasn’t fool enough to flag down a car in the middle of nowhere. She kept walking. The car pulled over anyway.

She looked in through the rain distorted window. One person, but it could’ve been the president or Mickey Mouse for all she could tell. Then the door opened; Scooter Welles, two years older than her and going steady with Mary White.

‘How are you doing?’ he asked jovially.

Selena sighed, he seemed friendly enough, and she had a fruit knife in her purse.

The first two times he put his hand on her knee, she pushed it off. The third time she took out her fruit knife and pressed it to his crotch.

‘Just take me home, Scooter.’

He looked genuinely astonished. Wasn’t that just typical?

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Quit grabbin’ at my knee.’

‘I’m trying to pay you a compliment!’ he protested.

‘Then tell me I’m pretty.’

‘Fucking psycho is what you are!’

And then he saw the other car, the police cruiser. Scooter flashed his lights until it pulled over ahead of them.

‘You gotta be kidding me,’ Selena said.

‘We’ll see what the law thinks about you pulling a knife on me.’

Selena hoped it wasn’t the sheriff. If it was she’d likely end up fighting him off too.

The cruiser door swung open and a tall, slim figure swung out. In the driving rain she couldn’t see his face but she could recognise his gait: Lucas, the sheriff’s son. He didn’t rush, just strolled out and tapped on the glass of Scooter’s window.

Selena put her knife away.

Scooter rolled down the window. ‘This crazy ass bitch…’

‘Now, now, there’s no call for language like that,’ Lucas said. ‘Let’s try to be civil shall we?’

Selena swallowed dryly. Taking a shine to someone was all well and good at a distance, but up close it was mighty inconvenient.

‘She pulled a knife on me!’ Scooter wailed.

Lucas bent down a little, to better see Selena. She saw him take in her sodden hair and clothes. The first, and likely only, time she talked to him she _would_ look like hell.

‘That Miss Coombs?’ he asked.

She was so surprised that she almost didn’t answer. ‘That’s right.’

‘The preacher’s daughter?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Scooter demanded.

Lucas gave him a look. It was not pleasant. ‘Miss, I’m going to ask you to step out of the car.’

She waited until he walked around and opened the door.

‘Here,’ he said as she stood up, ‘you look drenched.’

He settled his light jacket around her shoulders and walked her over to the cruiser, and had her sit in the front. It was incredibly warm in the car and Selena was uncomfortably aware of the steam rising from her clothing.

‘Lemme guess, you got caught in the rain and he offered you a ride.’

‘Then he kept putting his hand on my knee. Apparently it’s a “compliment”.’

Lucas shook his head. ‘Some boys have no idea how to treat a lady.’

Selena felt the blush building in her cheeks. ‘That was when I took out my old fruit knife. It’s a bitty thing really. Am I in trouble?’

‘No Miss, not for defending yourself. You stay here a spell while I go clear this up with ol’ Scooter.’

She watched him swagger over to the car and lean down to talk through the window. Whatever he said, Scooter backed the car up in a hurry and took off like he was trying to beat sunrise. When Lucas got back to the cruiser he was humming.

‘So, would you like me to give you a ride home, Miss Coombs or would you like taking somewhere else?’

Selena stretched and watched his eyes slip briefly to her body. ‘Why would I want to go somewhere else?’

‘I figure you had a row with your daddy,’ he said mildly. ‘It’s clear you come up here on your lonesome and since you don’t got even an umbrella I figure it was a spur of the moment decision. Seems to me you left the house with no clear place to go. So maybe you’re ready to go back and maybe you ain’t.’

Selena smoothed down her dress, the wet material kept clinging to her legs. ‘Maybe I might want to go somewhere else,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out on my account.’

‘You wouldn’t be.’ Lucas smiled. ‘I promise you won’t need to use your little knife on me.’

Selena met his eyes. ‘Who says I’d want to?’

She watched his interest rise as he looked her over more overtly.

‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Old enough.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

Selena sighed. ‘I’m sixteen in June.’

‘Meaning you’re fifteen now.’

‘I suppose,’ she said with a shrug.

Lucas tapped the steering wheel. ‘When in June?’

‘The fourth, why?’

‘I figure you ain’t courting June fourth I might pay a call on you.’

Selena felt her face redden, which was annoying. ‘Well now I know you’re just teasing me,’ she said, lightly slapping his forearm.

He was smiling slightly as he glanced at her. ‘Not true.’

‘Even if you remember who I am in four months’ time, you wouldn’t know if I was stepping out with someone or not.’

‘Sure I would. I like to take an interest in people, Miss Coombs, and you a real interesting person.’

Selena watched him suspiciously. ‘How’s that?’

‘Seems to me any woman to pull a knife on Scooter without raising a hair, and who’d then give me a come on, is a woman of great personal strength and exceptional poise. Hell, you’re probably capable of just about anything you put your mind to, and that makes you real interesting.’

‘Are you speaking as a deputy, or what?’

Lucas chuckled. ‘Likely both, but “or what” is more fun.’

‘Ain’t that the truth?’ Selena pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘I would like to go somewhere else.’

‘Name it.’

‘I’d like to get a milkshake.’

Lucas nodded and glanced at her. ‘I’d like to take you for one. The malt shop in town do you?’

Selena wiped water from her face. ‘Yes, thank you.’

They drove quietly for a few minutes until he spoke again.

‘Next time you fall out with your daddy maybe you could run into town and buy yourself something tasty.’

‘If I’d done that then I’d have never met you, Deputy,’ she said sweetly.

He smiled at that. ‘I’m always glad to be a silver lining.’

‘I have a question.’

‘Shoot.’

‘What if on my birthday _you’re_ courting someone?’

Lucas shook his head. ‘Not likely.’

‘Why not? You’re a-’ Selena paused, he was smirking a little. ‘You ain’t that ugly.’

That made him chuckle. ‘I’m in no rush. I’m very particular about who I spend my time with.’

‘Should I be flattered?’

‘Depends if you think my opinion is worth anything.’

‘You being a college graduate it must be worth something,’ Selena said, a little teasing.

He glanced at her. ‘How’d you know that?’

‘Your daddy is the sheriff. Kind of a big man in this town.’

Lucas shook his head. ‘That’s one word for it. But that don’t explain why you’d know anything about me.’

Selena shrugged. ‘Maybe I asked someone.’

‘About me?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Why would you do that?’ he asked, smirk back in place.

‘Maybe I was curious,’ she said airily.

Lucas looked across at her. ‘I wish you were six months older.’

‘So do I.’

Selena turned as Lucas opened the car door and offered her his hand. She was old enough to know that good manners proved nothing, hell, Scooter was as like to hold open doors as anyone else. But Lucas didn’t stare down her dress or at her legs, and that was a fair way to real gentlemanly behaviour. Not that she figured him for a gentleman. Even at her tender age she had real doubts such a thing existed. But a man who listened when she talked and looked more into her face than her body was about as good as she figured was likely.

If there were such things as gentlemen, they likely wouldn’t go escorting girls her age to get milkshakes. Not when they were grown men near old enough to get married. Her daddy would _not_ approve. He’d find out. This time of an evening the shop would be fair to full and someone would get gossiping. The preacher’s daughter and the sheriff’s son? There was a scandal in the making. Her so young and innocent. Him so handsome and charming. Oh there were whispers about his misbehaviours. Selena knew wicked when she saw it and she was burning to know just how sinful he was, just how he planned to corrupt her.

The malt shop was full but a table full of older boys scattered when Lucas strolled over and spoke to them quietly. Selena was neither impressed at the display of power nor appalled at the abuse of it. In truth she expected no less. His daddy was no stranger to violence or to bribery. Even Selena knew that and had ever since she was old enough to be warned to keep out of his sight.

‘Something occupying you?’ Lucas asked as he helped Selena up onto her stool.

‘I was just thinking.’

‘’Bout what?’

‘That’d be telling now, wouldn’t it?’ she said crossing her legs. ‘Doesn’t do for a lady to make it too easy.’

Lucas grinned as he put the milkshakes on the table and climbed onto the stool besides her. ‘I got a ways to go before I’m a gentleman.’

‘How’d you know I was thinking about that?’ Selena asked.

‘Lucky guess.’ He took a sip of his milkshake. ‘Ask you a question?’

Selena shrugged gracefully and took her own sip. ‘It’s a free country.’

Lucas used his straw to break up some of the ice cream in his milkshake. ‘If Scooter had grabbed a hold of your knee again would you have used your little knife?’

‘I sure hope so, else I’d have looked quite the fool.’ She looked at him from under her lashes. ‘Do you think that’s a wicked thing to think?’

‘No.’ He grinned at her. ‘But I gotta admit a real affection for wicked women.’

‘My goodness, is that so, Deputy?’ Selena asked, all innocence. ‘That must be a terrible inconvenience in your line of work.’

‘You can call me Lucas,’ he said. ‘Fact being I’d prefer it if you did.’

‘Wouldn’t that make me terribly forward? We ain’t related, far as I know. My daddy wouldn’t approve.’

She chewed her lip as Lucas made a play with his milkshake. Letting her dangle. She knew what he was doing but she didn’t mind. She was toying with him too, and wasn’t that a delightful game to play? 

‘You don’t strike me much as a young woman overly concerned with what her daddy thinks,’ he said mildly. ‘And before you act affronted, I ain’t exactly waiting on my daddy for any pearls of wisdom either.’

Selena took a long drink of her milkshake. It was awfully good. Her daddy never brought her here and it was rare she had any money of her own to indulge in it.

‘A girl has to look to her reputation,’ she said. ‘We ain’t like you. If you get a reputation for being wild and wanton, well, that just makes you more interesting.’ The remains of the milkshake gurgled at the bottom of the glass.

‘I find you plenty interesting, and if you’ve been walking out then you’ve kept it real quiet.’ He tapped the table top with his knuckles. ‘Another one?’ 

‘You’re gonna ruin my figure.’

Selena knew she was inviting him to look and she wasn’t disappointed when he did. Especially not the clearly admiring expression on his face.

‘Looks to me like you’re doing a fine job of maintaining a womanly figure.’

‘Guess you talked me into it, Lucas,’ she said with a shrug.

He grinned as he picked up the glasses. ‘That’s me, always talking beautiful women into things.’

‘So I’ve heard.’ She was glad of that reply, it let him know she wasn’t some innocent little mouse who had no idea who she was dealing with. She didn’t know why he’d brought her for milkshake when he’d already said she was too young for him, but she’d find out.

She did know there’d been a scandal a few years before he went off to college. She hadn’t known about it at the time, she’d been far too young. But when he came back from college all the gossip had been taken down off the shelf and dusted off: him having an affair with one of his teachers, and her being run out of town, his daddy not wanting him to go off to college, and Lucas paying for it himself. Him making a whole bushel of money nobody quite knew how. The problem with gossip was that it was stories and no facts. Maybe all those things were true. Maybe none of them. So despite all the rumours Lucas remained quite the man of mystery.

‘Is there anywhere you’re thinking you’d like to go after here?’ Lucas asked as he sat back down.

‘If it’s not putting you out I’d like to go to the cemetery.’ Selena took the proffered milkshake and took a sip. ‘If it is then I guess I won’t be going.’

‘It’s not putting me out. Now, what were we talking about?’

‘Your reputation.’

Lucas raised his eyebrows. ‘Do I have a reputation?’

Selena smiled slightly. ‘You’re teasing me again.’

‘I think you like me teasing you, Miss Coombs.’ Lucas crossed his hands on the table. ‘Or do I miss my mark?’

‘I doubt you miss many marks when it comes to womenfolk.’

‘Women are some of my favourite kind of folk,’ he said. ‘Especially the interesting ones.’

Selena sipped her milkshake. ‘You said I was interesting.’

‘Oh, you are,’ Lucas said.

Selena put her elbow on the table and lent her chin on her hand. ‘Just what do you mean by “interesting”, Lucas? Is it the same as being wicked?’

He shook his head. ‘Not exactly, Miss Coombs. I figure for sure that being wicked is more likely to be interesting but I don’t see why some innocent little thing couldn’t be interesting.’

Selena stole the straw from his milkshake, sucked it, and then replaced it. ‘Are you saying I _ain’t_ an innocent little thing?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Do I need to ask my daddy to defend my honour?’

‘Here I was thinking you were fit and capable of defending your own honour,’ Lucas said easily. ‘Ain’t that what your little fruit knife was for?’

Selena smiled at him. ‘Guess you caught me. Wouldn’t want you thinking I was one of those women who stopped a man from doing his manly duty. I ain’t any kind of feminist or any of that nonsense.’

Lucas picked up her glass, took a sip of her milkshake, and put it back down. ‘Here’s my thinking on “innocence”, Miss Coombs, and it is purely my thinking, with no claim to it being any kind of great truth. I think innocence, like wickedness, is a state of mind. Some folks, they’re innocent until the day they die. Other folks… well they’re wicked as sin coming out of the womb.’

Selena wetted her lips. ‘What d’you figure me for, Deputy? Am I innocent or wicked?’

‘Oh, I got high hopes of you being as wicked as they come, Miss Coombs.’

Lucas parked the car in the cemetery parking lot and squinted out of the window. ‘Just hang on while the rain eases off.’

‘I think we’re in for the evening,’ Selena said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

Lucas winked at her and when she looked out through the windshield she saw the rain slackening off.

‘Well look at that,’ he said, opening his door. ‘Rain’s stopped.’ He walked around the car and opened her door.

Selena turned in her seat and stepped gracefully out of the car. ‘I hope you’re not going to get into trouble for spending so much time with me.’

‘Don’t you worry yourself about it,’ he said casually as they strolled into the cemetery. ‘Whether my daddy gets mad at me or not ain’t much connected to anything more than what his mood happens to be.’ He glanced across at her. ‘So, who we here to visit?’

Selena picked her feet up a little to avoid sinking into the mud. ‘My momma is buried here.’

‘Mine too.’ Lucas jerked a thumb towards the other end of the cemetery. ‘Mine’s parked over by the Kennedy Mausoleum.’

‘Parked? My goodness Deputy Buck what a terrible cold thing for you to say,’ she said lightly. ‘I don’t remember ever hearing about your momma.’ 

Lucas shrugged as they stepped off the main path. ‘She passed before you were born. I was just knee-high myself. I remember the sad day your momma passed. Cancer wasn’t it?’

‘Mmm mmm,’ she said. ‘I was twelve. She’s _parked_ just over here.’

It was a quiet and isolated corner of the cemetery, just over the fence from the unconsecrated ground home to the suicides, murderers, and other criminals.

‘How come she’s so far from the rest of the great and good?’

Selena shrugged as she came to a halt in front of a tiny grave. ‘My daddy was a little torn between burying her over there with the lost souls and burying her here with the holy folks.’

Lucas tucked his hands into his pockets. ‘She hurt herself? I never thought that was a rule worth observing.’

‘She would’ve,’ Selena said as she knelt down to brush away some weeds. ‘She didn’t have the strength. She kept asking my daddy to help her die. He wouldn’t.’

Lucas squatted next to her and touched her hand. ‘What about that Christian mercy I’ve heard so much about?’

‘My daddy is old school,’ she said, ‘fire and brimstone. He doesn’t have any truck with forgiveness or mercy or any of that new-fangled hippy stuff.’ 

He chuckled. ‘Your daddy thinks Jesus was a hippy?’

‘Please, all that peace and love stuff,’ she said, rolling her eyes as she stood up.

Lucas brushed off his knees as he stood. ‘Sounds like your momma could’ve used some.’ He put his hands on his hips.

‘She was in so much pain. You wouldn’t think a body could have so much and live but she did.’

‘Until she didn’t.’ Lucas tilted his head as he looked at her. ‘That must be hard to live with.’

Selena tensed. ‘What must?’

‘Endin’ her pain.’

She crossed her arms tightly. ‘What’re you trying to say?’

Lucas shrugged easily. ‘No judgment, Miss Coombs, not from me. Your momma was in terrible pain. You loved her. You did what had to be done when your daddy didn’t. That’s a brave thing. I admire that. It’s a shame your daddy doesn’t have the sense to appreciate it.’

Selena said nothing. Her daddy had his suspicions sure but he couldn’t prove it and he’d never said it. It just lay between them, festering.

Lucas strolled closer to her. He was real tall, much taller than her, and he looked strong. She knew she should feel nervous being here with him, especially with him talking like he knew her secrets. She should feel nervous, and that scratched away at her nerves, making her more annoyed than anything.

‘What you gonna be when you’re all grown up?’ he asked.

‘What?’

He was close enough now to reach out and touch her. He wound a lock of her hair around his finger. ‘When you leave school, what you gonna do? You getting married and having a parcel of kids?’

Selena snorted. ‘No thank you.’

Lucas gave a lazy smile that sent her treacherous stomach flipping. ‘I didn’t figure you were the type for that.’

‘You don’t know me,’ she said quietly.

‘Oh, but I do.’ His fingers slipped under her chin and he lifted up her face. ‘I recognise you, Selena Coombs. I recognise a kindred soul. You got a hunger that ain’t gonna be assuaged by no amount of courting or birthing. You killed your momma for love, I’m sure.’ Lucas lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘But it felt good, didn’t it? All that power, and you were just a child. Think how much power you can have when you’re a grown woman.’

She looked into his eyes, they reminded her of a gator’s. Cold and callous. A man with eyes like that would be capable of anything.

‘Power you’d give me?’ she asked.

‘Power I’d help you find.’

What’s that gonna cost me?’

‘Nothing you ain’t happy to give.’ His thumb stroked the side of her face. His eyes never moved from hers.

Selena looked at the tiny grave and then felt the weight of her knife in her bag. ‘I’m afraid that you’re a very wicked man, Deputy Buck.’

‘Would you want me any other way?’

‘I would not,’ she said softly. She closed her eyes as he kissed her very gently, and very chastely on the lips. ‘And me an innocent child.’ 

Lucas chuckled. ‘We both know that ain’t true.’ He offered her his arm. ‘Shall I escort you back home?’

‘I’d be obliged.’

The End


End file.
